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We examine the role of the condensing agent in the formation of polyelectrolyte bundles, via grand-canonical Monte Carlo simulations. Following recent experiments we use linear, rigid divalent cations of various lengths to induce…
Plasticized poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) is a jelly-like soft dielectric material that attracted substantial interest recently as a new type of electro-active polymers. Under electric fields of several hundred Volt/mm, PVC gels undergo large…
We apply general variational techniques to the problem of the counterion distribution around highly charged objects where strong condensation of counterions takes place. Within a field-theoretic formulation using a fluctuating electrostatic…
The description of a conducting medium in thermal equilibrium, such as an electrolyte solution or a plasma, involves nonlinear electrostatics, a subject rarely discussed in the standard electricity and magnetism textbooks. We consider in…
Complexation between anionic and cationic polyelectrolytes results in solid-like precipitates or liquid-like coacervate depending on the added salt in the aqueous medium. However, the boundary between these polymer-rich phases is quite…
We consider a statistical mechanical model of a generic flexible polyelectrolyte, comprised of identically charged monomers with long range electrostatic interactions, and short-range interactions quantified by a disorder field along the…
The equilibrium electric double layer (EDL) that surrounds the colloidal particles is determinant for the response of a suspension under a variety of static or alternating external fields. An ideal salt-free suspension is composed by the…
Nonlinear elastic responses of short and stiff polyelectrolytes are investigated by dynamic simulations on a single molecule level. When a polyelectrolyte condensate undergoes a mechanical unfolding, two types of force-extension curves,…
We investigate theoretically the phase diagram of an insoluble charged surfactant monolayer in contact with a semi-dilute polyelectrolyte solution (of opposite charge). The polyelectrolytes are assumed to have long-range and attractive…
Using super-heterodyne Doppler velocimetry with multiple scattering correction, we extend the opti-cally accessible range of concentrations in experiments on colloidal electro-kinetics. We here meas-ured the electro-phoretic mobility and…
Restricting the number of attractive physical "bonds" that can form between particles in a fluid suppresses the usual demixing phase transition to very low particle concentrations, allowing for the formation of open, percolated, and…
The bound electron-hole pairs known as excitons govern the optical properties of insulating solids. While their behavior in equilibrium is well-understood theoretically, the nonequilibrium regime at high excitation densities-where phenomena…
Polymer brush layers are responsive materials that swell in contact with good solvents and their vapors. We deposit drops of an almost completely wetting volatile oil onto an oleophilic polymer brush layer and follow the response of the…
Acid-induced release of stored ions from polyacrylic acid hydrogels (with a free surface fully permeable to the ion and acid flux) was observed to increase the gel osmotic pressure that leads to rapid, temporary swelling faster than the…
Similarly-charged polyelectrolytes are known to attract each other and aggregate into bundles when the charge density of the polymers exceeds a critical value that depends on the valency of the counterions. The dynamics of aggregation of…
The adsorption of large ions from solution to a charged surface is investigated theoretically. A generalized Poisson--Boltzmann equation, which takes into account the finite size of the ions is presented. We obtain analytical expressions…
Using the complex Langevin sampling strategy, field theoretic simulations are performed to study the equilibrium phase behavior and structure of symmetric polycation-polyanion mixtures without salt in good solvents. Static structure factors…
We derive a large-strain plate model that allows to describe transient, coupled processes involving elasticity and solvent migration, by performing a dimensional reduction of a three-dimensional poroelastic theory. We apply the model to…
We explore the mechanical response of a single polyelectrolyte chain under tension in good and poor solvents using a combination of simulation and theory. In poor solvents, where the equilibrium state of the chain is a collapsed globule, we…
The behavior of polyelectrolytes and polyampholytes in semi-dilute solutions is investigated theoretically. Various statistical charge distributions along the polyelectrolyte chains are considered: smeared, annealed, permuted and quenched.…